Crying 3 year old

[MonkeyPrincess]

On the weeks that she comes to me, she is in her father's custody. The parents separated about a year ago. She would do the same thing before they separated too.

[Lee-Bee]

Is she the type that needs to be told to move on? I find some kids just wallow in self pity, so to speak and will spend the whole day crying until they are told that's enough daddy will be back at X time, now go to this until he comes.

Not all kids are like this of course but sometimes they just get stuck in one frame of thinking and need to be forced to move on to something else.

It sounds like you have done a great job acknowledging how she is feeling and if she has been doing this for over a year then a new approach will be needed.

Maybe acknowledge her feelings then stop giving attention for those feelings. Perhaps she isn't really missing dad but needs some hugs. She's just learned that this is how to get them?

[flowerchild]

On the weeks that she comes to me, she is in her father's custody. The parents separated about a year ago. She would do the same thing before they separated too.

OK. That changes my answer a bit. I was assuming this was new behaviour since the separation.

Maybe try a "sad spot". When she starts to cry, give her a hug, empathize with her, and then send her to her "sad spot". There she can cry, cuddle her stuffy, look at her pictures, whatever she wants to do to calm herself down.

I have a three year old here who will sometimes be very over-dramatic. She'll do something minor like bump her toe or something and will start wailing. I'll give her a hug and try to help her calm down, but she'll just stare at me and scream and scream and scream. She won't try deep breaths or anything to stop or calm down, so at that point, I bring her to the couch and ask her to sit there while she calms herself down and then I go about my day. I find she calms down much quicker that way. It's not done in a punishing way, just a calm, kind way.